In a Coals to Newcastle moment, we are off to Russia in a couple of weeks, and amongst our party of 14, everyone has decided to bring a bottle of vodka. Not just any vodka, but our list so far includes rhubarb vodka, horseradish vodka, cucumber vodka and (for the kids - allegedly) toffee vodka. No doubt this list will grow longer as the holiday gets ever nearer. And no doubt it will all be a lot cheaper when we get there. I'm taking whisky.
Sometime in the deep distant past last year, the boy was booked to go on Adventurous Training with the school cadets. It was so long ago that we didn't have a calendar or a diary to put the dates in...so we noted them down on a piece of paper kept on the kitchen window.
Our Russian trip was recently booked with the dates having shifted a few times to try and co-ordinate everyone. And that's where the problems started. Although we only noticed last week. I am never the most organised of people, but this is about the worst I've managed.
We return from the land of the Tsars two days after the boy is due to depart to the North of England. And that would mean he will miss the activities he most wants to do do - mountain biking and gully walking.
So we have been searching high and low for a flight to return us early to Blighty. Of the flights on offer, we thought it best to avoid the £4000 British Airways flight - naturally only because they may well be on strike! And I've heard of the safety record of some of the Russian airlines.
There were a variety of cheap flights that would take us to exciting airports for a connecting flight - Warsaw, Copenhagen, Vienna, Paris and so on...and at a not unreasonable cost...so actually it started to become a bit of an adventure (or so I told the boy). The journey time was around six hours, which is not too bad...although Alitalia suggested an 18 hour flight...not sure where it went to, but I'm guessing it was somewhere hot and south of the equator. But as it happens, the travel agent has come up with a direct flight, and the cost of that is saved against the accommodation we no longer require.
The downside though, is that we land at half past five in the afternoon, and to get the boy to his destination we will need to drive directly up to the deep, distant frozen north - the school bus will have left a few hours before. It's a six hour drive...and much as I love the Jeep, it's not a high-speed autobahn cruiser.
This I regard as punishment for my own ineptitude (I have decided to ignore the suggestion from someone who shall not be named, that it is the boy's own fault for not spotting the problem..."Teenagers need to take more responsibility for themselves").
Now all I need to do is work out exactly where we've got to get to...these places tend to be a little off the beaten track...and we'll be trying to find it in the dark. Hopefully with all his training, the boy will be able to read a map...
It will be a long day indeed. I may need that vodka....